


A Hymn to the (Almost) Fallen

by eudaimon



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, beloved childhood toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, I gave Chekov a childhood toy; a the legged rhinocerous called Tolstoy. Somehow, that little guy has turned up in every story I've written about them since then, which led to this.  As he lies dying, their lives flash before his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hymn to the (Almost) Fallen

In his thirty-sixth year, another leg falls by the wayside. His boy, his Pasha, is twenty-five years old and _his_ boy is older still and Tolstoy himself is a very old toy by then.

And puppy teeth are very sharp.

His Pasha cries when he finds him, and he cradles his broken body in his hands. What Tolstoy knows is that their lives have rarely been peaceful, never quiet and that there is a map on a wall with pins as numerous as stars. Tolstoy collects their stories, and he keeps them; the keeper of their years-long history. It is not much, but he is a very little thing. He does what he can. He does his best. He is an old toy, but diligent.

As he lies dying, their lives flash before his eyes. He sees many moons, and millions upon millions of stars. 

He sees the edges of a wound, soot blackened, the kind of screeching, crawling pain that a toy like him could never properly hope to understand (stuffing and stitching are nerveless). He remembers ho god it felt, afterwards, to be cradled in arms that loved him.

_Am I dying?_   
_Not yet, radost moya. Not yet._

He feels very movement of weeks of convalescence, every single aching, frustrating second and, all the while, the wound knitting closed like love. He sees castles and caverns and the bridge over a river. Many bridges over many bridges. He is small, but he understands that histories repeat.

He recalls the longing.

He remembers his boy, his Pasha, on his knees (here, he remembers with a measure of gentle embarrassment), and the pale flawlessness of his skin. He watched the kiss, a perfect tangle of months, his hand that cupped the other boy's cheek, a knee that pressed between spread apart thighs. A careless hand sent him tumbling to the floor and Tolstoy was glad of that, really. He loved them but some things he did not need to share in; some things he could leave between them and lie listening to the hum o heir voices until he fell asleep, and how Pasha's voice is deeper when he speaks Russian, a low rumble that reminds one little Tolstoy that, once, there were bears. 

He always feels safe when he's tumbled into the corner under the bed, in danger of being lost, maybe, but never in doubt that he is truly loved.

He feels in danger of getting lost now.

But it gets harder and harder to remember clearly. Dimly, he's aware of being carried and laid down very gently. A familiar hand holds his head.

He has done his best for so long.

Fading in and out, it takes a long time for him to realise that the pulling that he feels is a physical sensation. Stitches, a neat row of stitches which draw his arm, briefly separated, in tight against his side. An unfamiliar face, stern, a mouth set into a firm line. He is handed back to Pashas boy with his arm returned to him, the arm that _could_ be returned to him, the other long lost to him, left behind like another country. He feels like weeping, looking up at Pasha's boy; he is so grateful. He would weep his gratitude, if toy rhinoceroses had ever discovered tears in anything but the abstract.

He does not cry, which does not mean that he is not grateful.  
He was not ready to lose them yet, his boys.

"You owe me," says the fierce, glum man with the needle. "Damnit, Sulu, I'm a doctor, not a doll-maker."

"I owe you, Bones," says Pasha's boy.

*

And his Pasha's face is tear-stained and fierce. Tolstoy is taken and held close and then the other boy, then _Sulu, radost moya_ , wraps his arms around both of them, and they are knitting neatly closed, the three of them.

Knitting neatly closed like love.


End file.
